


Birds of a Feather

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Ace!Fitz, Aro!Jemma, F/M, Secret Valentines Exchange, queerplatonic, thefitzsimmonsnetwork, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9788843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: If it’s love, and we decide that it’s forever no-one else could do it better.If it’s love, and we’re two birds of a feather, then the rest is just whatever.-Fitz is having a hard time at work and Valentine's Day is approaching, so Jemma takes the opportunity to plan something unique.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AchillesMonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AchillesMonkey/gifts).



> Prompt: Aro!Jemma and Ace!Fitz in a queerplatonic relationship celebrate Valentine's Day in an unconventional way
> 
> SURPRISE, AchillesMonkey, I actually got you as both my Secret Valentines! I hope you like it.
> 
> Title & quote from "If it's Love" by Train

 

 _If it’s love, and we decide that it’s forever no-one else could do it better._  
 _If it’s love, and we’re two birds of a feather, then the rest is just whateve_ r.  
- [If It's Love, Train](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxWK3qACDGk)

_-_

In a grand hotel room, two tangled figures stumbled through the doorway, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Gold stiletto heels heedlessly crushed the luscious carpet beneath them as a jewel-pink dress dropped to the floor, and lengthy, sensuous legs kicked up around the trousers of a fine Italian suit. As the two lovers collapsed onto the bed together, the music swelled and the camera panned up, and it became clear that this director did not intend to cut to black. 

Jemma felt a flush down the back of her neck, and opened her lips a little to catch her breath. At the same time, behind her, Fitz made a quiet humming sound of discomfort. Jemma smiled with tight lips, as amused as she was irritated by the interruption. She snuggled deeper into Fitz’ chest, shifting lower, and took her eyes off the screen at last to roll over and peer up at his face. 

“Sorry,” Fitz murmured. “I know I promised I wouldn’t say anything.” 

“You didn’t,” she pointed out. “Technically.” 

He sighed. 

“It’s just –“ a fruitless handwave at the television. “I mean, really? They’ve known each other what, an hour? And that’s where they go?” 

Jemma laughed.

“No-one’s doing anything wrong, Fitz,” she assured him. “They’re just having fun!” 

Fitz screwed up his nose. 

“Doesn’t look like much fun. I mean. That looks like more fun.” 

Jemma followed where he pointed, to see that somebody had just been shot, and was falling dramatically backward into the swimming pool.

“Really?” Jemma pressed. “You’d rather get shot than have sex.” 

“Well I was talking about the bit before that, with the swimming, before all hell broke loose, but –“ 

“Okay, so you haven’t _completely_ lost it -” 

Fitz rolled his eyes.

“You’re great,” he insisted, “and there are plenty of things _it_ is better than. Y’know. Cleaning the shower drain. Setting rat baits in the attic. Dissecting a frog.” 

“You threw up last time you dissected a frog.” 

“My point exactly.” 

“You’re hopeless.” 

“We’re missing a perfectly good gunfight. Oh brilliant, here comes Miss Legs. Naturally, she’s going to have to fight in her underwear, of course.”

“Now I’ll admit that’s a little ridiculous, but she can fight remarkably well.” As the character vaulted over the bonnet of a car only to have her opponent throw her into a trash can and send her sprawling over the sidewalk covered in garbage, Jemma winced. “Oh, that poor stunt double.”

They returned their attention to the movie after that, but the banter continued. Together they poked fun at poor special effects, melodramatic one-liners, and flat tropes. Fitz explained or guessed at how various explosions and fight damage had been constructed. Jemma lamented and promised herself, for the fiftieth time, that she would learn martial arts one day. Maybe krav maga. The human body was truly a remarkable contraption. 

“Well this human body’s getting remarkably uncomfortable,” Fitz returned. “I’m getting a drink. Want one?”

“Water, please.”

Jemma nodded, and yawned as she stretched herself out and climbed out of the nest she had created for herself between the couch and the cushions and Fitz. He disappeared to the kitchen and she to the bedroom, where she changed into a loose top and took off her bra. When Fitz returned with the water, he looked tired enough to collapse, like a switch had been flicked and all of a sudden he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Jemma hummed sympathically.

“Working hard?” she purred as he slumped onto the bed, eyes closed and forehead creased, limbs tensed with frustration.

“Coulson just emailed,” Fitz murmured, a silent groan in his expression. “They’re upgrading to a new model after all, so half the coding I did today is out the window. At this rate I’m going to be another week on this bloody thing." 

“You shouldn’t check your emails before bed,” Jemma scolded gently. “Aside from the effects of screen brightness on sleep, there hasn’t been a day this week it hasn’t put you in a foul mood.”

Fitz grunted, wishing he had taken her advice, but read them he had and in a bad mood he was.

“Go to sleep, babe,” Jemma insisted. “You can deal with it in the morning.” 

She crawled onto the bed beside him and snuggled into his side, letting one arm drape over his chest. She hummed softly and breathed smoothly until she felt the frustration drain from his body. Fitz’ own breathing evened out eventually and Jemma realised she’d lulled him to sleep on top of the covers. She slipped off the bed and retrieved a heavy fleece from the lounge, which she pulled over him, and then she snuck back into her place, careful not to disturb him as she stuck her feet under the covers.

Knees drawn to her chest, back against a stack of pillows and the headboard, Jemma looked down at Fitz’ soft expression and floppy hair and smiled tightly. He was working outside both her jurisdiction and her expertise, so he didn’t often talk about this particular project with her and she was unsure what to do to help him most of the time. And today was an especially unfortunate blow. He’d thought he’d finally been done with this project, and with the difficulties and secrecies that it entailed – hence an afternoon of lazy strolls, cooking, and amusingly predictable movies. After all the work he’d done so far and thought he’d put behind him, another week might as well have been another month, another year, another decade to his tired mind, and his heart that hated not sharing with her. 

Jemma sighed. It seemed she had just as much of a penchant for putting herself in a mood before bed as Fitz did. She pulled her biomedical journal prints out from under her tablet to distract herself, but her eyes refused to train themselves on the words. Her brain refused to let go the thought that there must be something she could do, should do, would do for him. What was in a week’s time? Valentine’s Day. There must be loads of things to do on Valentine’s Day. Restaurants would be open, cinemas would have extra showings, events would be on all over the place. 

So it was decided then, she thought to herself as if she could bargain with her own brain. She would arrange a nice day out for them on Valentine’s Day, to celebrate at last and to get his mind off that blasted project and to allow him to share with her whatever he might have felt he’d been lacking or needed to make up for. Surely, with that framework in mind, she could cast aside the journal reading and just go to sleep, ready to start planning proper when it was more appropriate. 

Or.

Or, she could shuffle down under the covers and stare at the roof, and her mind could start buzzing with suggestions, and her heart could leap in her chest at the good ones and at the thought of being able to bring Fitz some peace. She could, in short, lie restless for a good few minutes and eventually give up on the attempt to sleep altogether and instead, do what she did best – plan.

- 

“Is the blindfold really necessary?” Fitz asked as Jemma guided him by the shoulder down into the passenger seat of the car, a week later. 

“Not strictly, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“Surprise? I thought we were going to a restaurant, y’know Italian or something nice and romantic and then go to a movie, and then a hotel room after that with candles and rose petals everywhere…” 

Fitz trailed off, grinning. He could feel Jemma’s glare through the blindfold. 

“Oh please,” she huffed. “You know me better than that. Besides, if I have to hear one more terrible pun or even _worse_ love story or watch those waiters _moon-eye_ at us like they did last year, I’m going to vomit.”

“Hey, you love puns!” 

“…Yeah, alright, maybe the puns aren’t too bad.” Jemma rolled her eyes as she moved the car into gear and started driving. Fitz was alert, looking around and listening. Trying to figure out her surprise. 

“You’re not going to see it coming,” she insisted. 

“Well of course I won’t, I’m wearing a blindfold, aren’t I?”

Jemma guffawed with laughter, and had to remind herself to keep her eyes on the road. Fitz grinned victoriously beside her and continued trying to map out where they were. He was terribly unfamiliar with the area, and after a while, they pulled out onto a long, straight road without much traffic and he lost track of how long they were on it. 

“Still think you can pick us, Lassie?” Jemma teased. Fitz crossed his arms. 

“We’re somewhere in New England,” he grumbled. “And I don’t appreciate the reference.” 

Jemma shrugged. “It was either that or Skippy.” 

Suddenly, Fitz bolted upright and slapped the car door excitedly. 

“I smell the ocean! Right? We’re going to the seaside, aren’t we?” 

“’The Seaside’.” Jemma laughed. “You’re so British!” 

“You’re Britisher!” 

“I bet I am, Mr ‘second grade math’.”

“Excuse _you_ Little Miss ‘footy squad’.” 

“We have footy squads!” 

“Oh, ' _we'_ do now, hm? And when did _you_ suddenly get an interest in the Dons exactly?” 

Fitz cut himself off when Jemma cut the engine and stepped around the car to open his door. The banter had successfully distracted him from a cacophony of sounds: money jingling, children screeching with laughter, and the unmistakable crank-accordion sound of carnival music. When Jemma finally pulled his blindfold away, she stepped aside to reveal a small fair set up on the jetty and grassed area near the beach. The water shone, a dark but luminescent backdrop for the coloured lights and flapping flags that announced festivity with the humble pride of a small town. 

“What do you think?” Jemma asked, trying to get a read on Fitz’ stunned expression. 

“I – um – why?” Fitz spiralled as he walked through the entrance, his eyes trained on the triangular penants flapping in the breeze above his head, and the stars far beyond them.

“I wanted to get away from it all,” Jemma explained, following him into the fairgrounds and guiding him out of the way of incoming strangers as he looked around, awestruck. “You away from that bloody project of yours and us away from the base for a while – and not to mention away from all that awful Hallmark tripe. It took me a while to find something interesting but then…I found this! I would’ve run it by you first but like I said, I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. Do you like it?” 

“Jemma!” Fitz gasped. “I love it! Fresh air. Space. _Fairy floss!”_

He grabbed her face, as if to kiss her, but got distracted. He ran past her instead, to a truck offering fairy floss, popcorn and deep-fried potato spiral 

“What’s a deep-fried potato kebab?” Jemma wondered, trailing him, and catching up just as he accepted an armful of food from the vendor. A tub of popcorn, a stick of fairy floss, and two of what could only have been the potato spirals. They were, in all, potatoes, cut somehow into a spiral and deep-fried onto a kebab stick. Simple, self explanatory, and unashamedly bad for you. Of course.

“What?” Fitz asked, when he saw her staring. “It was a long drive.” 

They walked around the grounds and ate and talked, and in all honesty the simple fact of fresh air was enough of a gift to last them both all night. Jemma became increasingly gladder that she hadn’t caved in the end and chosen a restaurant; it was such a rare opportunity to be out of the base, and out of a city, without having to look over their shoulder all the time. The quiet life, she thought to herself, was underrated. 

With occasional assistance from Jemma, Fitz polished off most of the food he’d bought initially in a fairly short span of time, but once he had a hand free, he held Jemma’s funnel cakes willingly and with great restraint as she engaged in some of the carnival activities. She tested her strength on the hammer, and both of them laughed when she barely managed to reach halfway. In the real world, she’d have jumped on the sensor instead, but a game was a game. She tried throwing balls into the clowns’ mouths and did a surprisingly good job, eventually winning a small stuffed seal made of gold and green fabric, which she gave to a passing child later in the night. When they got to a booth for shooting cans with a BB gun, Fitz jumped at the chance. 

“Okay okay, this one’s mine.” 

“My hero!” Jemma feigned a swoon, and took her funnel cakes back as Fitz made an enjoyably macho show of taking the gun and preparing himself. He was a good shot, but this was a carnival game. A notoriously difficult one at that. At least the attendant seemed to be getting a laugh out of his grand performance. 

Fitz managed to down two cans. The attendant applauded, his eyebrows high, impressed. He gestured to the row of choices Fitz had for prizes, and Fitz picked out a larger-than-life daisy made of some sort of felt-like material, with a smiling face sown in where the seeds would go and wire in the stem, for posing.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Jemma,” he said, presenting it to Jemma as seriously as if it were a bouquet full of roses.

“Oh, babe, you shouldn’t have!” she crooned, stroking its petals as if it were as sweet and fragile as a lily.

“Ah, the lovebirds,” the attendant called, applauding again. “I’ll give the lady three shots for free, eh? My little Valentines gift to you all.” 

Jemma grinned, and passed off her funnel cakes and the precious daisy to Fitz. She picked up the gun and fired, fired, fired, and the attendant howled and clapped his congratulations when three cans tumbled from their stand. 

“The highest score all night, Ma’am,” he congratulated her. “Have your pick of anything on the board!” 

-

Eventually, they retired to the beach.

They walked for a while, until the sounds of the carnival had faded into the distance and the soft roar of the lapping waves took over. Fitz sat, and brushed a patch of sand beside him so that Jemma could adjust her skirt and sit too. It was a graceful practice oddly out of place, as Jemma had the cartoonish daisy wrapped around her arm like it had grown there, and Fitz had a monkey with absurdly long arms and Velcro for hands hugging his neck, and the most recent phase of dinner consisted of a corndog each, and an absurdly large cup of ice-cream they were sharing. 

Jemma sighed in satisfaction as she looked out across the sea, where it reflected the shimmering silver moonlight. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Fitz,” she murmured, nuzzling into his shoulder. It was cold, and she’d left a jacket in the car, but she preferred this method of keeping warm. 

“Thanks for bringing me here, Jemma,” Fitz replied. “It was very inventive of you. I had fun.” 

“And you got to show off.”

“And I got to show off.” Fitz laughed. 

“You’re a great romantic sap, you know that?” Jemma teased. “Defending my honour against those nasty stacks of tins.” 

“They were looking at you funny, I swear.” 

Jemma laughed and rolled her eyes. “Next year, I’m buying you a sword.”

“Really?!” Fitz jumped, and almost sent Jemma’s corn-dog flying. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jemma promised. 

Fitz stuck his now-empty corndog stick into the sand and adjusted his position so that he could put an arm around Jemma’s shoulders.

“Aren’t you cold?” he wondered, looking at all her bare skin. Jemma shrugged. 

“Not with you.” 

Fitz snorted. “And _I’m_ the romantic sap.” 

Jemma batted her eyelids at him.

“Would the sap like to get my jacket from the car? Pretty please?” 

“Always.” Fitz kissed the top of her head and leapt to his feet, and Jemma hurried to pull the ice cream out of reach of a flurry of sand he kicked up as he headed up the beach and back to the car. When he returned with a jacket and a picnic rug, Jemma salvaged the ice cream once again and they set themselves up for a long and beautiful night under the stars.  


End file.
